Twitch was at least 12 years old, perhaps as old as 14.

Twitch was a centerpiece at my cousin’s wedding – a Chinese wedding – in New York City. Goldfish symbolize wealth, abundance, and fertility in Chinese culture. According to wikipedia, Jinyu (金鱼, the word for a goldfish) is a homophone for “gold in abundance”; therefore, they are perceived as suitable gifts for wedding. Facebook tells me the wedding was in 2011, but for some reason I seem to remember it being earlier. My parents took him home that evening, along with two compatriots.

The central motif of Twitch’s life, if I had to pick one, was resilience. The three fish were in a fish bowl for the start of their lives. It should have been no surprise that two of them died soon after, fish bowls are horrible for a fish like a goldfish, which produces a lot of nitrogen waste. The last remaining fish was Twitch – though he did not go by that name or any name for at least a year while my parents kept him at home. His life at the time consisted of eating and being rinsed out in the sink, as water changes were done by way of “just running the whole fishbowl under the tap to cycle the water”.

My parents came to visit me in the summer of 2012. I was living in Nebraska, having just moved into an apartment off-campus with Robert, my freshman-year roommate, and they wanted to leave me the minivan to use in my final year in college. Unwilling to leave the fish alone they brought him – in the fish bowl – on a road trip from NYC.

He arrived in Nebraska after the 20-24 hour trip. My parents came and left me the car and having no ground transportation back to NYC, they flew back. Now, a creature of the water is not permitted in the airport by the TSA because water is a dangerous thing, so I kept the fish in my new apartment.

Twitch continued to live in the bowl for about a week. At night I could hear him popping at the surface of the water, and research suggested that the fish was not getting enough oxygen. Immediately, I went out and got him a spacious 25 gallon tank all to his own with a bubbler. I named him Twitch Brokenfin, after his aggressive dancing at the glass in want of food and his curiously bent right fin.

Twitch spent the year with me as a senior in Nebraska, and kept me lively company. I fed him peas often, as websites recommended a source of greenery in his diet. I fed him other greens, too, but he preferred peas.

I graduated college in 2013 and made the journey back to New York with my dad. We loaded up the minivan and this time put Twitch in a bucket with a hole cut in the top for an air line to go into. I bought a power inverter for the van to plug the aerator into. His bucket was tucked in just between the seats towards the front of the van.

Arriving at home I set up his tank and decided he was lonely and needed a friend. I went to the local fish store to pick up another fish. I think I named this fish Dale – he was a bit of a menace, chasing Twitch around for no reason.

Twitch and Dale spent the summer with me at home – but I think Dale passed away not long after owing to some sort of neurological disfunction. He was swimming in tight circles, and not upright, by the end.

I worked for a bit in NYC before getting another job back in Nebraska, in winter of 2014 I made a long and difficult drive in snow back to Nebraska for the job. I initially roomed with my then-girlfriend and her roommate, but eventually moved out to my own studio apartment. I spent the year there.

I left Nebraska in the spring of 2014. On my way home from Nebraska I rendezvoused with my now-wife in Cleveland before arriving at home – this would be the first time Lisa would meet Twitch.

I arrived back home in NYC and began preparing applications for graduate school. I was accepted into Cornell to begin in 2015, so we made our way up to Ithaca in the fall. Twitch spend the three years at Cornell with me, and I enjoyed having his tank by my desk in the living room. I would cover his tank with a blanket as I worked late into the night so that he could sleep more comfortably in the dark.

I had field work to do in the summers of 2016 and 2017. It was all summer, from May through September, and up in the Adirondacks so I couldn’t leave fish back at my apartment. I am sure that my landlord/host would have taken good care of him, but I did not want to impose that upon him. The first summer I left the fish in the care of my parents again. I regretted this – I came back to find him at my grandmother’s house, but I think he wasn’t looked after properly in my absence. I was determined not to leave him again so I took him along with me to my field work in 2017.

Twitch had another companion at this point, another goldfish that one of my colleagues had pulled out of a pond. Goldfish are invasive and shouldn’t be in natural ponds – he was brought up with us to the Adirondacks. He didn’t last long – I was limited in space and the 10-gallon travel tank that I had was apparently not enough for the both of them. He jumped out of the tank one day as I was outside doing work.

Twitch kept going as he always did, and joined me after I graduated graduate school to live with my wife in Cleveland. We drove my things over in a U-Haul, and Twitch was in the passenger foot-well, in his travel bucket as he was now very accustomed.

We set up his tank in Cleveland. My wife had a cat at the time – Old Sport – and Sport would sit and watch the tank as a cat would, deeply and undeterred. I pulled up a chair closer to the tank so Sport could watch Twitch in more detail, and I could see how he reacted. Bad idea – Sport would lunge at the glass to get the fish, once almost tipping the tank. I didn’t let him have the chair after that.

We lived in one apartment, then rented a house, then bought a house in Cleveland. I believe Twitch enjoyed his time at our first house. Moving into our second house in 2018, the layout and general tilt of the house precluded his placement anywhere sensible, so we had him in the dining room. I wanted him in the living room but the floors were not level and his tank would have leaned too far over for comfort. This was the only level spot. At first he looked great.

But this period was the only time I think Twitch appeared genuinely dejected. Instead of floating in the water column, we would often find him floating in the corner of the tank. Twitch had always had some swim bladder issues, but usually they resolved – this time it seemed more like a great boredom. There was, unfortunately, very little stimulation in his space in the dining room. It was rare that we would spend time in there, as we usually took our meals in the living room just beyond. I think he was suffering from a lack of stimulation. I would sometimes set up my laptop and play some aquatic scenes just for anything new to come across his view.

His health began to worsen at this point. He began developing what appeared at first to be a bump, then a larger bump, then eventually what amassed into a tumor-like growth on his head. I looked it up many times and couldn’t find anything that matched the description other than a neurofibroma, a benign tumor. Images, at least, were consistent with what I saw.

We moved into our new house in March/April of 2022. This time we were able to have him in the living room and he seemed much more animated, and I got him a new 30-gallon tank, extra tall. No longer did he float in the corner, he slept in the center of the water column. I believe he would continue to be healthy despite the tumors.

The tumors grew larger over the year, and he developed more growths on other parts of his body. Eventually during 2023, he developed ulcers that became black with – I’m assuming – dead tissue. Despite this, his behavior, appetite, and resting all appeared as normal as can be for the fish – like I said the fish was resilient as all hell. Not once did he ever appear to be in pain or discomfort. I attempted all sorts of treatments including Melafix, Sulfaplex in case it wa fungal, Maracyn in case it was bacterial, a protozoan remedy, and aquarium salt.

The black areas continued to spread and deepend, including into his tumor on his head, until eventually he no longer was able to swim upright, floating on one side after swimming for a little bit. He seemed tired, and stiff either from inflammation or a weakened musculature. It was at this point I decided to euthanize him.

Twitch lived long, and was my companion for what was essentially my entire adult life. He was a constant, a reliable constant, and gave me something to care for and nurture each day. He grew large, sometimes without my realizing it. He was about the size of my hand. I did not cry for any of my other fish, perhaps owing to their transience, but I did cry for Twitch – he had an outsized effect on me for a goldfish.